Lisa Banner

Ok, can you tell that I am a little bored! Of course I have SOOOOO much I should/could be doing - but hey, this is OJT, right? My friend Lisa owns a cute little boutique in Lynchburg, Virginia and just to play around I made this for her.

Watermark for photos

This is my first attempt at creating a watermark to put on my photos/cards before loading them to my blog. Simple, clean look. Photoshop takes a long time to figure out, but I am getting there! I am going to try this for some other things as well. Who knows!

Vacation 2008

This picture says it all! Head for the Ocean. Jonathan spelled it out in the sand and that is where you could find us for the whole week we were in Myrtle Beach. Once again, we had the best weather possible - it was in the 80s and sunny all week. No rain, no extreme heat, just absolutely beautiful.

The boys were trying to "capture" teeny tiny sand crabs here. They weren't fast enough - the crabs were very happy about that. They did get a little mad, however, and one of their bigger, stronger brothers paid Jonathan back with a nice bite on the bottom of his foot. He hightailed it out of the water pretty quickly!

Surfer Boy Jonathan. He didn't do as well on the waves this year as last - but he still had fun trying.

Cody, taking a break after several hours on the beach and in the pool. He much prefers the pool - but really he would take either!

Jonathan will do just about anything for a laugh!

Hey - I was on vacation with my family - this picture proves it. This is the only picture of me though.

We really had a great time and I look forward to going back again. Maybe next year we will be able to take Zeb! That would be a treat. Rotten dog!

Halloween Card

Wow, I am way ahead of the game for Halloween, if only in the card making realm of things. I love the idea of halloween and I buy tons of crap for halloween, but I never seem to get it out and decorate. What's up with that??? I have no idea what the kids will want to be for halloween this year. The "Deadskins" football players have been DONE! It was easy though and didn't really cost me anything. We have the jerseys all I needed was a little makeup and some colored hair spray!

They totally cracked me up - some of our neighbors wanted to withhold the candy though, not a slight on the precious Redskins! Funny thing is - Jonathan LOVES the redskins.

For the card -
Paper: (SU!) Black, Pumpkin Pie
Stamps (PTI) Birds of a Feather
Other: (SU!) Ribbon; (Making Memories) Chipboard Buttons "Halloween"

Boys have birthdays too!

You would never know that boys have birthdays in my world - it seems like all the cards I make are so girly! Whoda thunk that I have 2 boys - and NO girls. I have several boy birthdays coming up soon - like Cody who will be 11 this year! I don't think this card is too juvenile yet, almost, but not yet. We already gave him his birthday present - a new bat. They are sooo expensive. I had no idea! Anyway, he spent what seemed like hours picking out his new bat and his is as happy as a pig in you know what. The poor neighbors have been hearing him on the hit-a-way since he brought it home.
This isn't him with his new bat - but I thought I would add a shot of him at the All-Star tournament. He was literally inches away from a home run! He was so excited and almost forgot to run. Fortunately his feet kicked it in gear and he made it to second. Cody, dear heart, is not the speediest kid on the field...but we love him anyway! The next game he played the other team intentionally walked him. He was totally pissed, but we tried to explain that it was a compliment! The other team's coach came up and told him so after the game was over (we won!!)

Back to the card - heres the recipe:
Paper- (Cosmo Cricket Cogsmo) Cogs, Mr. Roboto, Bandwidth. The background paper was just something I found in my stash that matched the blue perfectly
Stamps - (SU!) So many scallops
Ink - (Brilliance) Graphite Black
Other - SU! Scallop Punch

How Patriotic

I know this card is a wee bit late for 4th of July - but hey, I wasn't home! (To be honest, I didn't make the card until after the 4th but so what, right?) We spent the day of the 4th at our friend's parents house down in Calabash. The sad thing is - we never see these friends and they live 20 minutes away. We had to drive 7 hours to spend time together! That is just plain ol' silliness. Anyway, we had a wonderful cookout with LOTS of great food and there were 8 kids running around so all in all we had a fun time. We heading back to Myrtle in time to catch the fireworks on the beach and let me tell you, if you have never spent the 4th of July in Myrtle Beach there is nothing quite like it. I swear, every direction you turned your head there were amazing fireworks going off. The best part was, we just had to walk across the street and plop our behinds on the sand! No traffic, no parking!

Recipe for this card:
Paper: (SU!) Brilliant Blue, Very Vanilla
Ink: (SU!) Brilliant Blue, Real Red, (Brilliance) Graphite Black, (Ranger) Distress Ink Walnut Stain
Ribbon: SU!
Stamps: (My Sentiments Exactly) Pledge; (Inkadinkado) Burst
Others: (SU!) Dimensionals

Weathered Birthday Card

This paper screamed at me when I saw it at our LSS - which by the way is going out of business. How sad for our town! I know so many people who shop there regularly. Now all we have is Michaels and AC Moore - and let's face it, their paper selection is rather stinky!

Recipe for this card -
Paper - (SU!) Black and Very Vanilla ; (Making Memories) 5th Avenue - double sided
Stamps - (SU!) Weathered ; (Anna Griffin) Sentiment
Ribbon - SU!
Decorative Brad - Anna Griffin "Hannah Collection"

New Blog Banner 2

Well, this is my 2nd attempt at a blog banner. I finally got a version (an old version) of photoshop loaded on my computer and I have been having fun doodling around. The frog is from on old children's book - I found the book on the guttenburg press site - it is from the 1800's but I can't remember the specifics. Bad Librarian, Bad Librarian.

I have some new cards to post - but I am trying to take make my pictures look better. Not quite there yet! This is the original illustration...

Yee Haw I am back in the saddle!

I don't know when or how - but my computer is no longer blocking blogger! Maybe I can start posting again. I need to get some vacation photos up and posted. We had such a great time at the beach - and low and behold we didn't have to visit the emergency room once. I think that is a record for our family. To be fair, it was close! I actually had a palm frond (you know the sharp pointy kind) go directly into my ear canal while we were playing miniature golf. I thought I was going to cry right there it hurt so bad. But, I sucked it up and I don't think it actually punctured my ear drum - but I have tried to keep water out - just in case!

The boys had fun and I actually got a little bit of a tan - so all in all successful! We ended up leaving a day early though. Todd missed his dog SO bad. Hearing the he bit Melanie and she had to get stitches didn't help any. That visit from animal control was brutal! Fortunately everyone has recovered and Melanie still loves Zeb. Rotten Dog!

I have been decorating the powder room in the house - so I will post pics of that as well. I wanted the room to be a soft robin's egg blue and I was going to do trendy chocolate brown accents - but, it didn't work out so well. The paint color ended up being purple! So, I have had to go in a whole new direction. Once I get the shelves and artwork up I will take some photos! I also bought fabric for making curtains for the dining room. Busy, busy, busy! Too bad I have this day job that takes up all of my time!

Mojo Monday Week 41 Challenge

This card was created for my friend Sherry, who just had her 2nd baby girl!

Paper - SU! Vanilla and Close to Cocoa.

I have no idea where I got the pink paper - just in my stash! The patterned paper is by K&Co. "Hopscotch Girl Ballet Toss."

Stamps - SU! Soft and Sweet (retired, I believe)

Embellishments - pink brads with crystal stickles and American Crafts Ribbon.

Sketch to Try

This is my very first sketch "challenge." It really was fun - especially since I had a need for a graduation card!

Paper -: SU! Black, Whisper white and a silver metallic that I got from Michael's

Patterned Paper - Stemma "After Graduation"

Stamps - I got the graduate stamp from the dollar bin at A.C. Moore and the corner stamp is from the Verve Visual Filigree Fantasy

The ribbon is an AC Moore ribbon.

I made this card for my graduate - Cody - he graduated from the 5th grade today. Boy was I a proud Momma! I thought I would showcase him here in all his cheesiness!!! Happy graduation baby boy.

Summertime color challenge - a wee bit late

Here is my interpretation of the Verve Visual "Summertime and the living is easy" color challenge. Entries were supposed to be posted by the 31st of May. Oops, I didn't quite make it.

I have never entered any challenge before and I was SO nervous about posting my work. But I really liked how my card turned out, so I thought - what the heck. I will link to the contest anyway.

Here are the deets:

Stamps (from A.C. Moore - Inkadinkadoo)

Paper - SU! Pumpkin Pie, Whisper White & Certainly Celery

Ink for Cones - pumpkin pie

Ink for ice cream and words - regal rose, so saffron, certainly celery, & Bashful blue (I didn't own any sky blue, so I guess I didn't follow all the rules!)

Extras - stickles for the sprinkles, big brads by Queen & Co., and sweet petite ribbon from AC Moore.

Next time I will do my best to get my post in on time!

Strawberry fascination!

I don't exactly know what is going on with me lately - but I have become obsessed with strawberries - not the actual food item, mind you - I am not the biggest fan of eating them - but I am obsessed with strawberry images.

I saw this paper at Joann's craft store and bought just about all the pages they had - in addition to two different fabrics with strawberries (don't know what I will do with those yet!)

I am really please with how this card turned out - I used SU Real Red paper and ink and Old Olive paper. The strawberry image is from Papertrey ink and I topped it all off with some red gingham ribbon. Yum!

Card for Katie

Katie and Adam are heading out to Salt Lake City, UT in just a couple of weeks as well as Adam prepares to attend law school. I am just glad I still have Katie's sister Melanie staying at work with me to keep me sane! I can't believe so many of my favorite gals from work are leaving at the same time. Friday is going to be one VERY hard day. Make sure the waterproof mascara is on! I totally love the way this card turned out and it reminds me of a Tiffany box...at least that was what I was going for!

The sentiment is from Verve Visual's new release as is the filagree design. I started playing around with the desing and finally came up with this one and I am really please with it. The bee stamp is just a random stamp I got from Michaels in the clearance bin - I think it is Tin Can Stamps (?) The blue paper and ribbon are from Papertrey ink and the white and black paper are from SU! I also had to adhere a little bit of sparkle to the card to continue with the whole Tiffany theme.

I hope Katie likes it and knows it goes with her wishing her the best of luck on a great new chapter in her life! I will most definitely be following her and her family's antics on her blog!

Card for Tara

Tara will be heading to beautiful Charleston, SC in just a few short days to start a new job with the Citadel! She loves the beach and is so excited to be living SO close. I hear she can even see the water from her new condo. I am too jealous. Lunch won't be the same without her either!!
I used a couple different shell papers and a SU stamp set as well as the same Verve Visual sentiment "The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams" --Eleanor Roosevelt. So fitting!

Card for Erin

I created this card for my friend and fellow librarian, Erin as she heads off to her new job as a reference librarian in the Executive Office of the President's Library! I just knew the "bookabella" stamp set would be perfect! The inside of the card has a great sentiment from the new Verve Visual set. Erin will be missed - but I had to create two other cards as well! 3 of my great "lunch bunch" set are all setting out for new jobs/destinations!

Backyard baseball and cookout with Grandpa

Cody, Jonathan and Wyatt had a great game of wiffle ball going - eating smores with Grandpa was pretty cool too!

Jon and the "caterpitters"

Jonathan is in love with 'caterpitters' he named this one C3PO!

Gift Card holder for Garrett's B-day

This is the gift card holder that I made for Garrett's 5th birthday. I used the Snappy Birthday set from Stampin Up. I got the idea from the Pine is here blog. So cute and super easy to make. It made the gift card not so totally boring! 5 year olds aren't usually all that excited about gift cards - that is why the bag is filled with a gazillion bubbles!!!

Even More Teacher's Gifts - Nugget Tins

This is another great thank you gift for a teacher. The tin contains 12 pieces of Hershey's chocolate nuggets. The colored paper is from SU!

More Teacher's Gifts - Thank you berry much!

This is a "mini" paint can decorated as a thank you to that special teacher in your child's life. I put the tape dispenser in the picture to give you an idea of how big the paint can is. It is filled with new "sweet" mint life savers.

I used the SU! tag punches to create the thank you card and the stamp set is from Paper Trey Ink.

Our Furry Friend

Isn't he cute! Especially when he is outside - not chewing my favorite pair of shoes or eating one of my magazines!!!

Easter Egg Hunt Pictures

Jonathan was thrilled to search for more Candy - boy the dentist is going to love us today!!!

Cody was trying to act like he wasn't having as much fun as everyone else!

Samantha, Natalie, Eric, Kellie & Wyatt also found lots of goodies in the eggs.

Easter Treats

These are the treat bags I made for all the kids! They were filled with candy, erasers and a couple of other special things. Pink for the girls blue for the boys. All supplies/stamps came from Papertrey Ink.

Sweetie's Birthday Treats

Ok, I know, crafts for a dog's birthday party??? Everyone deserves something cute on their special day! I made this bag for Sweetie on her 1st birthday. Just bringing a box of Milk bones just seemed too...ordinary. Jazz it up!